Town Elf 3.5 Race PEACH

[freyathefairy]

Town Elves (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Town_Elves_(3.5e_Race))


+2 Charisma -2 Strength
Humanoid (Elf)
Medium size
Town Elves base land speed is 40 feet
Low-Light Vision.
+2 racial bonus on listen, spot, bluff, sense motive, and diplomacy checks and those skills are always class skills.
Immunity to sleep effects.
+2 racial bonus on will saves against enchantment spells.
Automatic Languages: Common Elven Bonus Languages: Any
Favored Class: Bard
LA: +0


Fluff

{table]Personality

Town Elves are the least haughty of all elves and most commonly found highly integrated into human towns. They are for the most part accepting of most races and customs.

Physical Description

Town Elves are very human like while still keeping much of there Elven charm. Their ears are pointy like all elves and they are very slender. Their hair, eye and skin colour vary depending on where they stay but it is very varied. They are also quite petite.

Relations

Generally shunned by most elves for not being "True Elves" due to the fact that they came about from a long line of elves, half-elves, humans and other races.

Alignment

Most town elves favor towards neutral good though any neutral or good is not uncommon.

Lands

Town elves generally feel most at home in places like a busy town or huge metropolis, anywhere where there is a huge mass of people to interact with.

Religion

These elves generally worship the main human and/or elven deities though they might worship another deity if their worship is common place where they stay.

Language

Town elves can speak Elven and Common.

Names

Town elves are generally part of big houses that share a surname. Some of the big ones are: House Teryuan, House Ijasat, House Fweudt, House Qutagas and House Ysak First names are commonly the name of a person of importance to the parents so names from many cultures are common place. [/table]

[AuraTwilight]

What sets them apart? Why would people want to play this? Why are they called Town Elves?

[awa]

why 40 speed? that seems out of place for a city dweller.

[freyathefairy]

What sets them apart? Why would people want to play this? Why are they called Town Elves?

Added fluff that might answer your questions.


why 40 speed? that seems out of place for a city dweller.
Their a fast moving race made for playing in a fast moving city.
Also;

Town Elves base land speed is 40 feet: because they spend most of there time moving quickly around towns.

[AuraTwilight]

Added fluff that might answer your questions.

I already read the fluff. :l

[cavalieredraghi]

this is just my opinion, but this seems like you are almost making a D&D version of the Alienage Elves from Dragon Age with out the racism from humans. which is interesting.

[freyathefairy]

What sets them apart? Why would people want to play this? Why are they called Town Elves?
I already read the fluff. :l
Okay then so addressing your point.

What sets them apart?

They are a race created for a mainly urban campaign I will soon be running and I hadn't really seen an elf race made for talky-stuff and so this is an elf made for talking things through.
Why would people want to play this?

They are made for talking and such so they could be quite good in a campaign with a lot of diplomacy and stuff.
Why are they called Town Elves?

They are called town elves because it is uncommon to find one outside a city unless they are travelling to another city.

[freyathefairy]

just a wee totally innocent bump

[freyathefairy]

Just wondering if anyone else thinks this could be tweaked any more?

[jedipotter]

Just wondering if anyone else thinks this could be tweaked any more?

There does not seem to be anything unique about them. They look like a 'player race' as they have the sneaky cheat to get a fast movement rate and bonus class skills. If fact, it looks like a sneaky attempt to make a ''cool combat elf'', with fast movement and spot/listen: ''My ''town elf'' can spot or ear any foe around and move to attack them fast, huzza!"

If you did really want a ''town elf'' then why not add something like ''as they live in town they can pick any two skills as class skills'' or even better:

''As long as a town elf is within a community of at least 2,000 people, they gain a +5 compantnce bonus to any roll, once per round. This represent them using the 'town' to their advantage. And give them a couple of spell like abilites, like open/close or message. And then give them a huge penatliy if they leave the town, like -5 on all rolls.

[Kazyan]

This is a power race for sorcerers. Sorcerers would get +2 to their casting stat and the class skills to actually party-face. Plus, the only other LA+0 races with +Cha are Lesser Planetouched or have a Con penalty. Shifting the penalty to a caster's dump stat is strong for them. Heck, with that high move speed, I'd slap on the Slow trait and enjoy still being as fast as a dwarf and with the HP to match.

You could definitely "cheat" with this race, as jedipotter likes to put it. Tweak it to not be so optimal?

[Zweisteine]

First of all, under Physical Description, you used "there" instead of "their."

You might want to call them "City Elves" or "Urban Elves." "Town Elves" sounds a bit silly, I think.

The rest of this post is split into two parts: my opinion of the race's stats, ignoring fluff, and my opinions on the fluff and on the stats as related to fluff.

Opinion on the stats alone:
It's a pretty interesting race, and not bad. for some purposes, it could be considered to be too good, even, such as a social sorcerer or rogue.

The speed boost is pretty powerful, and might even be too much right there, but the race has so little else that it might make little difference.

Making skills always class skills is maybe not such a good idea. That type of thing, I think would go better as an unrelated feat (something that might have a name like "city-born").

Overall, I think the race is good, but potentially could have some issues with being too good when used in certain ways (social sorcerer, maybe).


Opinion on fluff and how the stats are connected to the fluff:
While I can kind of see why you might give them a charisma bonus, it doesn't really seem to fit for an urban race. Sure, they're more talkative than other elves, but humans (not to mention dwarves), one of the more (most) urban species, don't get bonus charisma (get a charisma penalty).
(Though if elves normally had a penalty to charisma, taking it away because of the city lifestyle might be justified (in my opinion).)

The same goes twice for the increased speed. It really makes little sense. This is especially true considering that in real life, humans live in cities, and we still walk at about 30 feet per six seconds.

If what you want is the diplomacy skill, you could make a plane/fey-touched elf (like the Aasimar and Tiefling, but with an elf as the basis rather than a human).

I'd say that if you wanted elves in an urban setting to be less aloof, yo could just take the High Elf (or the Gray Elf) and just say that living in cities has made their culture less aloof.*

Mind you, these comments are likely most certainly biased, because I consider the concept of an Urban race rather strange. Even in D&D (and even in the more Urban settings**), evolution takes time, and a race won't evolve fast enough to evolve to city life (unless magic is used to push it forward, which is rare).


Overall review:
The race is pretty good, but doesn't fit the fluff too well.

If it were me, I would flavor the race as an Elf subrace that evolved a more nomadic lifestyle, probably alongside halflings or (less nomadic) gnomes (though, especially among gnomes, I would think elves likely to retain their love of academic wizardry, or even for that love to grow).

It seems to me like the type of race that might be designed by a player who wants a race perfect for their sorcerer (the only improvement it needs for that would be extra skill points to fuel the extra class skills).



Footnotes:
*This is how I might make a simple Urban Elf:
Take the High Elf and replace the weapon proficiencies with a +2 bonus to Diplomacy and Gather Information (as Half-Elves).
For a more distinct racial offshoot, as opposed to that cultural offshoot, I would also add the additional ability modifiers of the Gray Elf, having evolved in a similar fashion, but in cities (or simply being a cultural offshoot of Gray elves).

**Like some of Eberron, but not if the setting is a world of super-ancient cities that are the center of all cultures (like a fantasy version of Coruscant) (which would require urban varieties for every race).

[nonsi]

LA = +1, not 0

[illyahr]

This looks to be a faster version of half-elf with some stat modifiers. I would just use a half-elf base and make minor adjustments. Also, you could look into Races of Destiny for some good urban feats/racial variants.

[Cheiromancer]

I don't think that the idea is salvageable. I can't see any tweaks that would fix it. If I were a DM I would reject the proposed race. The mechanical elements do not support the supposed concept, and they promote a bad character archetype (the diplomancer).

The ability modifiers and skill mods make it look like a class designed for min-maxing a diplomancer. I don't know if you are using alternate rules for diplomacy, but the diplomacy sub-game in D&D is not very good. Either it breaks the game or it gets nerfed to uselessness by your DM. Having racial bonuses that steer characters into diplomancy is a bad idea.

Alternatively, the race would be a good one for Cha-based spellcasters. A high movement rate to keep you out of melee combat, no pesky Con penalty - it looks pretty good. But of course there is nothing about a melee-avoiding bard or sorcerer that is particularly urban.

The high base movement speed sounds like the barbarian class feature; there is also ranger ACF that gives barbarian speed. But thematically a barbarian or a ranger is a wilderness class, not a town or city class.

If you want a movement ability that is suited for an urban environment, an ability to ignore some of the movement penalties crowds might be better. Or some kind of roof-walking ability (check out the ACF's for urban barbarians and rangers for ideas). Other ideas might include the ability to communicate with vermin or avoid disease - both hazards of urban living. The ability to function well in crowds and tight spaces would also be a good fit for an urban race. A different direction would be a bonus to economic skills; haggling, crafting, you name it.